Falling Fast
by Platinum Dragoness
Summary: Cloud/Zack/Aeris/Sephiroth, hints of Sora/Riku/Kairi and Axel/Roxas, Cid, Yuffie, Cloud/Leon/Aeris/Sephiroth Kingdom Hearts!Zack based


So, KH is like a happy resurrection fantasy for Aeris and Sephiroth. Why not Zack? I should write KH Zack. Leon looks kinda like Zack, even if he's Squall Leonhart from FFVIII. Yeah, downhill from there. The back story plot thing definitely inspired by **ciceqi**'s Mirrorverse.

Title: Falling Fast  
Pairing: Cloud/Zack/Aeris/Sephiroth, hints of Sora/Riku/Kairi and Axel/Roxas, Cid, Yuffie, Cloud/Leon/Aeris/Sephiroth kinda too and I'd say it makes sense if you read the story, but no not really  
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy VII

Maybe the kids were a little cute, dancing around each other like that. Not that Leon would say anything. To himself he reluctantly admit that Sora and Kairi and Riku couldn't help but be cute, like kittens or puppies. All fur and paws and little growls that came out adorably when then tried to roar.

It made him want to grin, but he didn't smile, particularly not over things as stupid as that.

Cloud was looking at him odd, which made Leon have to resist the urge to put his hands to his face to make sure it didn't have any embarrassing expressions on it.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," his arena partner said, snapping out of it. "You just looked like someone for a second."

Leon didn't ask. In the Heartless-filled streets of even one of the better worlds, you didn't.

The ding of an egg timer from the shop was loud enough to be heard in the alley and the trio gave up their killing of stray Heartless to run for the food with the enthusiasm of any teenagers.

Leon and Cloud followed them, not nearly as worried Aeris's cooking would run out. The kids were staring at their plates impatiently, except Yuffie, who was ninjaing cookies. Aeris was bustling in the kitchen and came out with a pot between hot pads.

The pot left her hand, but gravity was working in an odd direction. It was falling, but he was falling too. How odd that looked. Leon hit the floor.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Leon woke up in bed with Cloud's hair in his face. Okay, not so bad. They'd been partners in the ever homoerotic quasi-military environment. He just didn't like memory loss in and of itself.

Freeing his head from the blondness, he could see Aeris. Well, she had Cloud had issues, but they were clearly close. She was a pretty girl.

Someone shifted at his back, pulling him possessively against their chest, an arm and a curtain of silver hair falling over him. How did this manage to keep getting worse?

"I think it's traumatic flashback time."

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

"Leon?!" Cloud called to his partner he caught centimeters above the floor.

"Leon?" echoed everyone else, half-standing to see what was going on.

"Leon, Leon," Cloud called but there was no response. Leon's eyes fluttered under his eyelids, but he didn't wake.

Aeris leaned over and called a different name. "Zack."

Leon's eyes flew open. "Hey, babe."

"Oh Zack! What are you doing here?" Aeris teared up. Cloud was looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Who?" asked Sora.

"Is the battle over? Did we win? How are the defenses? Did Se—did anyone—What were the casualties?"

"Gen'ral Zack?" asked Cid tentatively.

"Highwind? Where are we, babe? Cloud? How long was I out? Was I hurt bad?"

"What's wrong with Leon?" Sora asked.

"Why is he all glowy?" was Kairi's question.

"I think he needs to go lie down. Cloud."

Cloud took his cue to pick up Le… Za… him and follow Aeris upstairs. "Don't worry, Sora. Leave this to Aeris."

"Cloud, buddy, what's wrong?" Zack asked as he dumped him on Aeris's bed.

The flower girl returned with a mirror.

"When I see a handsome face in the mirror, I expect it to be my own."

Zack looked up suddenly, Leon's eyes overtaken by almost a mako glow. "What happened to the psychic wards? We're being watched."

Now that he mentioned it, Cloud felt the metaphorical hairs at the back of his neck rise. It was not an unfamiliar sensation, one he just didn't take note of normally. Zack had always been the most sensitive to Sephiroth.

Darkness rippled in the room, around an even darker three-winged figure. Leon's eyes went soft and vulnerable even as Zack groped for a Buster Sword that wasn't there.

"Zack?" Sephiroth never sounded worried or confused but he failed at complete coldness. His enemy, his Darkness, his friend was clearly torn between _Traitor_ and _Zack, oh my Zack_. The tension in the air was palpable.

Just as clear, all of Zack's questions had fled him. Sephiroth was here, that was the _only_ thing that mattered. The former leader of Radiant Garden's defenses against the Heartless's hand twitched and it hurt to see him not touch Sephiroth when he obviously wanted to.

"The hold's not stable," Sephiroth said, eyeing Zack but somehow plainly speaking to Aeris.

"No, it's not. It's not even an empty host. Not," Aeris said warningly, "that that would help."

Confused by their behavior Cloud turned to Zack. "What do you remember? Since that battle?"

"I… What normal people see when they're not conscious. Black with little yellow spots. And… fire. Can fire have personality? It was tied to something, so I followed it and saw people. I didn't—your friends downstairs. And then I saw you and heard your voice, so I woke up."

Aeris and Sephiroth were listening intently by the end. Cloud shot Aeris a look that hopefully said, _I've got what he's talking about on this one._ Sora had confided in him a little about his time as Roxas and his relationship with Axel that Roxas hadn't acknowledged and Sora didn't understand and how Axel had died for him. Cloud thought Sora would be able to understand, when the part of him that was Roxas stopped protecting him from his own memory and let him face someone who loved his friends as much as Sora himself did his own.

"Zack. You died." Sephiroth had never minced words and knew nothing of tact. They had just been dithering around softening a blow that couldn't be so maybe that was just as well.

"But if I were dead and had found you I wouldn't be this confused."

"We didn't," Aeris explained.

For a second he looked hurt, confused, then Leon's face developed Zack's most devil-may-care expression. "So, you can't kill me again" Cloud winced, wondering if Zack remembered Sephiroth had killed him, "and this is only temporary and Cloud and Aeris can look after themselves, so there's no reason I shouldn't…"

Despite the warning it was a shock when Zack surged out of bed, actually slower than it should have been with Leon's unenhanced muscles. He hit Sephiroth like a cannonball, but despite that they had literally been killing each other last they'd seen each other, it was not an attack. Zack threw his arms around him and held on like a clamp, burying his face in long silver hair.

"I'd never forgive myself if I missed my second chance to say what I mean to," he breathed into the waterfall of hair. Sephiroth was holding perfectly still but not fighting or reaching for Masamune. "I'm sorry, sorry for everything. I'm your friend; I always will be. I still always will love you."

"You think that will fix everything?"

Zack shook his head against Sephiroth's neck. "You may still hate me and I deserve for you to. But I can't, uh, rest in peace till you knew what I was too afraid of saying the first time around."

Cloud's breath stopped. Sephiroth didn't crumple but his hand went up as high as it could on his back without breaking the grip around his middle. "Traitor. But I haven't been able to hear Mother since the Heartless devoured the heart of Hollow Bastion." He pulled Zack's head backwards and kissed him viciously. Zack clung onto him like it was the only thing keeping him standing.

Aeris took the drop of killing intent in the room as a cue to put a hand gently on Sephiroth's arm and the other on Zack's.

Cloud finally moved, putting a hand on Zack's shoulder with the boldness of all the years of experience since he'd last been the shy boy his friend had known. He leaned over to do what he had wanted to do since he was a teenaged trainee and kissed Sephiroth. Sephiroth allowed the press of lips from his rival, pursuer, enemy, friend?

Zack turned his head enough to playfully kiss him and Aeris. Sephiroth pushed Zack back into the bed and kissed Aeris not as forcefully, the anger and wariness draining out of him at the playful expression that made Leon look like Zack with a haircut. This was probably some really bad form of rape to be using Leon's body this way, but Zack was so strongly himself it made physical body feel irrelevant.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

"Hey." Leon smacked Cloud in the shoulder.

"How were you flashing back to that when you weren't there?"

"How do you know I was flashing back?"

"You get this look on your face whenever you do it. Like you jumped in a pond and then discovered it was twenty feet deep and had piranhas."

"That's the dumbest metaphor I've heard all day."

Cloud, as long as Leon had known him, had done broody, not shy. He propped himself up on one arm and kissed him. Sephiroth's arm pulled tighter at Leon's squeak and he gave a low contented mutter.

"I guess I don't have to worry about keeling over if I'm lying on my back."

Cloud groaned and buried his face in a pillow.


End file.
